Bitcoin SOPR and NUPL explained: reading holder profits

Bitcoin SOPR (Spent Output Profit Ratio) tells you whether coins moving on-chain are being sold at a profit or a loss: it divides the price a coin was spent at by the price it had when it arrived at its address. Above 1, sellers are locking in gains on average; below 1, they are realizing losses. NUPL (Net Unrealized Profit/Loss) answers the companion question: what share of bitcoin's entire market cap is paper profit nobody has taken yet. On Nov 1, 2026, bitcoin SOPR stood at 0.9938 and NUPL at 0.31, according to BGeometrics — the market as a whole was in profit, but the coins actually changing hands were being sold slightly underwater.

This guide covers how both on-chain indicators are calculated, the short- and long-term holder versions, what readings looked like at past tops and bottoms, and how to read the November 2026 picture.

What SOPR measures and how it's calculated

SOPR was introduced by on-chain researcher Renato Shirakashi in an April 25, 2019 article. The idea rests on how bitcoin stores value: every coin sits in a transaction output (UTXO) with a known creation time. For any coin that gets spent, you can look up the bitcoin price when it was received and the price when it was sent on.

Per Glassnode's documentation, SOPR is the USD value of all outputs spent in a period at the time of spending, divided by their USD value when they were created. The usual window is one day.

A quick example: a coin received at $60,000 and spent at $75,000 has a ratio of 1.25. A coin received at $95,000 and sold at $75,000 comes in at 0.79. Daily SOPR is the value-weighted average across every coin that moved that day.

SOPR variants: aSOPR, STH-SOPR and LTH-SOPR

Raw SOPR is noisy. It includes internal shuffling and coins bought and sold within the same hour. Analysts therefore use refined versions:

1. aSOPR (adjusted SOPR) — the same calculation with outputs younger than one hour removed, per Glassnode. That filters out exchange churn and chains of transfers.
2. STH-SOPR — only coins younger than 155 days, i.e. short-term holders. Glassnode picks the cutoff statistically: coins under 155 days old are far more likely to be spent and form the liquid supply. STH-SOPR swings harder than the headline metric, because new buyers are the first to sell at a loss in sell-offs and the first to take profit in rallies.
3. LTH-SOPR — only coins older than 155 days, the long-term holders. It normally sits well above 1 since these coins were usually bought earlier and cheaper. When LTH-SOPR drops below 1, even patient money is selling at a loss.

How to read SOPR: the 1.0 line

Shirakashi's core observation was that SOPR oscillates around 1 and that the level itself separates market regimes. In bull markets, dips below 1 tend to get bought quickly: holders refuse to sell at a loss, supply dries up and price bounces. In bear markets the reverse happens — rallies back to 1 meet selling from people who spent months underwater and want out at break-even. He also cautioned that the indicator behaves erratically at the start of a bear market.

Glassnode's docs describe the same dynamic. A drop to or below 1 in a bull market is a "reset" in which buyers absorb supply. A series of rising SOPR peaks can signal distribution into strength, while long stretches below 1 point to capitulation.

Recent extremes, from BGeometrics data (SOPR chart):

• the lowest SOPR since November 2022 was 0.871 on Nov 18, 2022, a week after FTX collapsed;
• the highest over the same span was 1.178 on July 4, 2025;
• STH-SOPR fell to 0.905 on Aug 5, 2024, the day of a sharp global market sell-off, and peaked at 1.205 on March 13, 2024, a day before bitcoin's high at the time.

All of these are only obvious in hindsight. In real time, SOPR tells you what sellers are doing today, not where price goes tomorrow.

What NUPL is and the NUPL zones

NUPL is the market's net unrealized profit or loss as a share of market cap. Glassnode defines it as market cap minus realized cap, divided by market cap. Realized cap values each coin at the price of its last on-chain move — see our explainer on bitcoin realized price. Glassnode dates the concept to February 2019 and credits Tuur Demeester, Tamás Blummer and Michiel Lescrauwaet.

A NUPL of 0.31 means 31% of market cap is paper profit relative to what holders' coins were worth when they last moved. A negative NUPL means the market as a whole is underwater.

NUPL maps directly onto MVRV: NUPL = 1 − 1/MVRV. With MVRV at 1.449 on Nov 1, 2026 per BGeometrics, you get exactly 0.31. So NUPL and MVRV are not two independent signals — they're the same information on different scales. More on MVRV and other cycle gauges in our bitcoin cycle indicators guide.

The NUPL zones most analysts use (thresholds per Axel Adler Jr):

According to the same Axel Adler Jr data, the last day with NUPL above 0.75 was Dec 18, 2017. In 2021 it peaked at 0.749 on Feb 21 and never actually entered euphoria. The last day below zero was Jan 12, 2023, and this cycle's high was 0.64 on March 11, 2024. The lowest reading since November 2022, per BGeometrics data, was −0.32 on Nov 9, 2022, in the middle of the FTX collapse.

Bitcoin SOPR and NUPL in November 2026

Free data arrives with a one-week delay, so the latest full snapshot is BGeometrics for Nov 1, 2026, supplemented with our own data through Nov 8.

What the numbers say:

Sellers are slightly underwater. SOPR just below 1 means coins moved in early November sold, on average, under their acquisition price. Since September, SOPR has stayed in a tight 0.99⁠–⁠1.03 band in BGeometrics data — a market searching for balance rather than panicking.

Short-term holders are right at break-even. STH-SOPR was 1.0003, and on Nov 8 price ($75,754) sat almost exactly on their average cost ($75,796). That's the line for recent buyers: hold above it and they have no reason to sell at a loss; break below and STH-SOPR will likely slip under 1 as well.

Long-term holders are selling at a loss. LTH-SOPR at 0.83 is the standout number. Coins bought in the first half of 2026 and earlier — including near the 2025 highs — have now crossed the 155-day mark, and some of those owners are exiting at roughly a 17% average loss on the coins they sell.

The market overall is still in profit. NUPL at 0.31 sits in the lower part of the Optimism band. Summer was weaker: NUPL was 0.166 on July 31, 2026, per the BGeometrics monthly report. Using the $53,944 realized price for Nov 1 (BGeometrics) and the $75,754 price on Nov 8, NUPL was roughly 0.29 by Nov 8. That's our estimate; realized price barely moves within a week.

We track related metrics — MVRV, the Mayer multiple and a composite market temperature — on our bitcoin page and in the Pulse block; on Nov 8, 2026, market temperature read 28 out of 100.

Common mistakes

• Treating SOPR below 1 as a buy signal. In bull markets those dips were often bought, but in bear markets SOPR can sit below 1 for weeks while price keeps falling. The indicator doesn't tell you which regime you're in.
• Comparing providers one-to-one. Glassnode, CryptoQuant and BGeometrics filter internal wallet transfers differently, so their SOPR and NUPL values diverge in the third decimal, sometimes the second.
• Forgetting invisible coins. Spot ETFs and companies hold bitcoin with custodians; when fund shares change hands, no coins move on-chain and nothing shows up in SOPR.
• Treating NUPL zones as laws. The 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75 lines are analyst conventions, not market physics. In 2021 NUPL never reached 0.75, yet the cycle still topped.
• Reading a single day. Daily SOPR is noisy; analysts usually smooth it with a 7-day average and watch the trend.

Limitations

Both indicators describe the market in aggregate and can't tell you who is selling or why. Moving coins between your own wallets, switching custodians or consolidating outputs on an exchange all look like a spend at today's price. Free data lags: BGeometrics serves week-old values without a subscription. The history is short — four full cycles — and market structure has changed since spot ETFs launched. SOPR and NUPL are good at describing what holders have already done and poor at forecasting exact prices.

FAQ

What's the difference between SOPR and NUPL? SOPR only looks at coins that moved during the day and measures realized profit or loss. NUPL looks at every coin and measures profit that hasn't been taken yet.

Where can I check bitcoin SOPR and NUPL for free? Charts are available on Glassnode Studio (some metrics are paid), on BGeometrics with a 7-day delay, and on CryptoQuant. MVRV, which converts to NUPL with one formula, is on our CoinLab dashboard.

Why does SOPR around 1 act as support? Because people hate selling at a loss. As price falls toward their cost basis, some holders stop selling and supply shrinks. In bear markets the same psychology flips: on a return to cost basis, people sell to get out even.

Does SOPR work for other coins? It can be calculated for any UTXO-based chain with price history, and Glassnode also publishes it for Ethereum. But bitcoin has the longest history and most of the research; see our guide to the bitcoin four-year cycle.

This is not investment advice.